About the CAF Resilience Programme

CAF Resilience is a pilot programme to test out how we, and others in the sector, can help small charities to be more resilient.

Through this initiative, ten small to medium sized charities in the UK, whose work has a 'problem prevention' focus, are receiving grant funding, alongside bespoke advice and training for two years. In return for this support to build their resilience, the selected organisations have formed a learning community, working with us to encourage further philanthropic giving that supports this goal.

Ultimately, we hope that what we learn will inspire more major donors to support charities in planning for the longer term; to strengthen their organisational health and help secure the continued delivery of services that people depend upon.

The programme is running with a set cohort of charities and is not open to new participants.

Funding the programme

What we're learning

This is a unique programme. Through it we hope to learn what does and doesn't enable a small charity to be more resilient. As we go along we plan to share what we're finding with the sector to support thinking about how charity resilience can be encouraged.

We also want to use the learning to educate individual donors. To help them understand more about what small charities need and how they can focus their support so these organisations can continue their vital work.

Theory of change

The programme's theory of change describes what we hope will happen as a result of this work. Take a look at the theory of change diagram.

Initial findings from the programme

The first cohort of three charities has completed their first year on the programme and all the others have begun their journey. Whilst it’s still early days we've put together a short report of our initial findings.

CAF Resilience programme team

Beth Clarke

"CAF Resilience is an incredibly exciting programme. We know that many philanthropic individuals are interested in supporting smaller charities but want to know how they can do this in a way that helps the charity to become more resilient. Supporting a small number of organisations over a few years, CAF will be able to learn what works and just as importantly what doesn’t, and share this learning with other charities, funders, as well as donors who are interested in giving in impactful ways."